While Twiverton is known far and wide for being "very old", the only buildings of ancient pedigree that survive are the church and the husk of a thirteenth-century farmhouse. A spirit of "cut-price utilitarianism" rules the roost in this hard-pressed part of the west country.
The Admiralty civil servants who live in the more spacious council houses have been portrayed all too negatively in these Files. Yet without the Admiralty civil servants there would have been no valiant (albeit ultimately doomed campaign) to halt the demolition of Twiverton's most prized residence. Henry Fielding (Bow Street magistrate and author of 'Tom Jones') lived here in the eighteenth-century. His house would still be standing now if it had not been ear-marked for 're-development' as a retreat for retired casino owners from Florida. A group of Admiralty civil servants (all of whom were prominent members of the Bath Dickens Society) had to be dragged out of the way of the approaching bulldozers when they tried to thwart the demolition squad's plans. Sadly the only person from our estate to participate in this heroic cause was the slick salesman from the immaculate corner prefab.
A complicating factor in the controversy over the demolition of Henry Fielding's house was the fact that a number of 'locals' who lived in Twiverton village were employed in the demolition industry. They regarded the securely employed 'cosmopolitans' employed by the Admiralty as "over-privileged post-materialists."
By the end of 1963 it was all over and Henry Fielding's crumbling yet once glorious residence had been razed to the ground. You can still feel something of the novelist's creative spirit lingering around the betting shop and the dry cleaners in the High Street. It is only a matter of time before a group of young writers bursts on to the country's literary scene and creates a unique Twivertonian oeuvre.

"I pondered all these things, and how men fight and lose the battle, and the thing they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name" -
William Morris